Reply to Sender
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day 1407: One night, when studying has taken a backseat to texting, Rachel and Quinn find themselves in a suddenly awkward and potentially problematic situation. - Runaway Bride series


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 66th cycle. Now cycle 67!_

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**"Reply to Sender"  
Rachel/Quinn  
Runaway Bride series  
_(no listing yet; sequel to "I Am Yours")_  
**

It had started innocently enough. Both of them were up studying late, Rachel at her house and Quinn at hers, and they had been texting each other, to stay motivated, no matter how exhausted they were getting. Eventually, they had done about all they could do on that night without cramming too hard, so they had kept on texting.

Then Rachel had said how she missed Quinn, how she wished they could have been studying together. Quinn had pointed out that, had they done this, they probably wouldn't have gotten very far. In the days since they'd both told their parents, Rachel's hand, which she'd slammed hard in the process of answering her phone, had been nothing but an inconvenient bruise, and this had kept the girls from resuming their tentative explorations, their testing of limits. But finally she was starting to feel better, so of course this very time-consuming test had been dropped in their laps.

Rachel had agreed that a joint study session would have degenerated before long, and then Quinn had asked. _How?_ Rachel had looked at her phone, hesitant but at the same time curious. So she'd written her back, telling her how exactly it might have gone. Quinn had replied, and Rachel had written back, and she was so very glad that, by now, her fathers would be in bed and wouldn't be barging in.

Then there was a pause in the flow of texts. They'd been steady enough that Rachel only had to wait a few seconds after sending her own text before Quinn would reply, which had only made things all the more heated. But at the pause, which stretched on, she started getting concerned. She reread her last text, wondering if she'd said something wrong. Maybe her mother had come in? Or her battery had died? Then she got another text.

_Rachel, we have a problem._ She smirked, writing back.

_Some problems are good to have._ A few seconds later, Quinn replied.

_No, not that kind of problem. I wrote back, and then I saw it didn't send to you. It sent to someone else._ Her hands stilled when she finished reading the message.

_How bad was it?_

_You'd have blushed._

_Can they tell you were talking about me?_

_Kind of. Yes._ Rachel hesitated. She was dreading the answer.

_Who did it send to?_

_Brittany._ Rachel tried to tell herself it could have been worse, but then she knew, it still could.

_How did that even happen?_

_I don't know, the window popped up as I was about to reply to you and I didn't see until I'd already hit send._ Rachel sat up, trying to breathe, to think.

She didn't know how she felt exactly, about it getting out. Obviously it was going to have to, eventually. They were together, and she intended to keep it that way. Staying hidden would only hurt them. But this was here, and now. This was McKinley, with people who might get hurt because of all this, especially her and Quinn. There was a right way to do something, and a wrong way, and if it got out through gossip about their texting each other as they had on this night, it would get out of control.

When Quinn texted again, she looked down to her phone. _Brittany just wrote back. She's confused. I don't know what to tell her._

_Say you'll talk to her at school tomorrow? What else can you do at this hour?_

_Right, okay. Are you going to bed now?_

_Soon. Talk to you tomorrow?_

They'd wrapped up their messaging, and Rachel put her phone down by her bed, lying down with a sigh. She tried to put herself back in that mindset again, from before the last text had gone in the wrong place. Her hand had gone over her heart, feeling it thudding along, like it was remembering.

She missed feeling Quinn near, pressed against her. She missed being able to touch her, to kiss her… The last few days had been torturous, knowing how much she felt the need to keep things evolving between them. Certainly what had happened that night could qualify as their moving forward, but it wasn't nearly in the ways she'd wanted it. She wasn't sure how far she was ready to go, maybe not all the way, but…

She had to put this out of her head for tonight, she had to. There was too much at stake. Between this test, and the Brittany situation, she needed to get to sleep. Her dreams were probably going to take care of some of her Quinn deficiency anyway.

In the morning, she realized how little she'd slept, and how utterly exhausted she was. This wasn't like her, she was usually so ready, so rested. She wanted this day to be done, for her to be able to get back on track with how she did things. She followed her usual routine, fit in a difficult but needed extra little time for studying and reviewing, and then she went on her way to school.

She had no idea what to expect. Would Brittany have already spoken with Santana? Would she have told her about this text she'd gotten from Quinn? If Brittany had not realized what it was she had, Santana surely would, and she did not put it past her to make it her mission to make sure every single person in that school, student and faculty and staff alike, down to the lowest on the janitorial pole, knew that Quinn Fabray and Rachel Berry were sending each other something just on the edge of sexts. _No, she wouldn't do that, would she? We're not those people anymore, we're friends, right?_

She had to find Quinn, had to know if she'd spoken to Brittany yet, had to know what was happening. She was going to go crazy if she didn't find out soon.

As far as she knew, going through the halls, no one was looking at her any funnier than they usually did, so her Santana hypothesis was so far proven wrong. She made her way toward Brittany's locker. Maybe Quinn would be there.

THE END/TO BE CONTINUED (DAY 1428)

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******A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.  
****In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are  
************always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!**


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